John Dos Passos is one of the few living American writers who is a world figure. Abroad, his books are sometimes cited as criticisms of American capitalism and as novels which expose American claims and propaganda. At home, Dos Passos is now regarded by some of his former admirers as a man who has made a complete turn, and has abandoned liberalism for the extreme right; he has gone from The New Republic to The National Review. In consequence, he is regretfully considered as writing in a state of rigor mortis, and tears—mostly of the crocodile variety—are shed for him. He is a source of shame and danger to the Madison Avenue psychological warriors who would defeat the Kremlin by selling the USA as though it were the biggest cake of perfumed soap in history; his books are not very useful to the People-to-People geniuses and...